On May 2nd, SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment, the owners/operators of Busch Gardens Tampa, filed a new trademark application for the name Desert Dive and registered the domain name DesertDive.com. Since the park’s new drop tower planned for 2013 will be going into the Timbuktu section of the park, it would only seem logical that these registrations are for the new attraction.

However, just because the park has trademarked the name doesn’t mean it’s the final name they’ve chosen for the attraction. We saw an excellent example of this back in 2010 when SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment registered the name “Cheetaka“. This was widely believed to be the final name for Busch Garden’s new Cheetah themed roller coaster, but it was changed at the last minute to “Cheetah Hunt“.

Below is a screenshot of the trademark application. What do you think of the name? Do you think it should change, or will this be the name of the 2013 drop tower? Let us know in the comments below, or on our forums!

Plans filed with the South West Florida Water Management District last week confirm the rumors that Busch Gardens Tampa will be adding a drop tower style attraction for the 2013 season. The plans filed are just for the preliminary ground work, so they don’t tell us much, but we can still pull a few bits of useful information out of them.

For starters, we can make a pretty educated guess about the ride’s manufacturer, which has been thought to be either Moser Rides, (BGW just worked with them on Mach Tower) or Intamin (BGT just worked with them on Cheetah Hunt). Looking at the tower’s footprint, we can see it has eight sets of four seats, for a total of 32 riders. Intamin appears to only offer drop towers that seat 24, 30, or 40 riders, while Moser Rides offers a Gravity Tower model that seats 32. This certainly doesn’t confirm Moser as the manufacturer, but it does make it seem much more likely.

Another interesting item to note is the new entry plaza into Timbuktu that Busch Gardens will be adding. Gone will be the canvas overhangs and outdoor market, creating a much more open, and likely incredible view of this new attraction.

We previously reported that the plans for the 2013 attraction at Busch Gardens Tampa called for the relocation of the Sandstorm ride, which is currently located in the Timbuktu section of the park. The ride’s new home has been a topic of debate over the past week, with guesses of its new location ranging from Nairobi to Egypt to the Bird Gardens. Thanks to permits filed with the Southwest Florida Water Management District last week, we now know Sandstorm will be moved into the Morocco section of the park, right across from Gwazi Gliders. We’ve included several images below detailing the new location of Sandstorm: